This study is intended to determine the factors of importance in recognizing the musical modes according to the students of the Department of Musical Sciences at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Ataturk University, and to find out whether these students can recognize the simple modes or not. The study group consists of randomly chosen 40 students in the 3rd and 4th years of the Department of Musical Sciences at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Ataturk University. The study is composed of a descriptive pattern. In the study, the general survey method has been used to determine the factors of importance in recognizing the modes from the students’ perspectives and to discover if they can recognize these modes. It has been concluded in the study that the following factors are very important in recognizing the modes heard: “flow of the mode, its melodic line”, “scale of the mode”, “the starting note of the melody” and “the ending note of the melody”. The rate at which the participant students can recognize the modes can be given in the descending order as follows: Bûselik, Karcığar, Hicaz, Rast, Hüseynî, Uşşak, Nevâ and Kürdî. The mode which they can recognize the least of all is determined as Basit Suzînak. A general look at the students’ competency has shown that the students have a good level of competency (71.7%) in recognizing the modes.

Key Terms: Mode, simple modes, mode recognizing, competency, factors.